At Ramirez & Co., a midsize business with decades of wins, leadership thought its biggest challenges were competitors, technology, and the market. Close, but no cigar. The real problem was stress, the silent drain that doesn’t show up on a Gantt chart but still wrecks your timeline.

Deadlines were tighter than skinny jeans, workloads heavier than a Costco bag of dog food. People were running out of gas. The fallout? Missed targets, mysteriously “urgent” sick days, and mistakes no amount of Wite-Out could cover up. The work didn’t get worse. The humans doing it were simply exhausted.

Owner Mark Ramirez had a moment of clarity during a Tuesday budget review that looked suspiciously like a Friday the 13th. He noticed the red numbers had the same root cause: People were tapped out. So, he built a stress management program that wasn’t a wellness app nobody opens or a binder full of laminated good intentions. It was a set of changes that improved daily life and performance.

Here’s what was rolled out.

Flexible work options—Hybrid schedules, staggered hours, and recovery days after sprints.

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